34 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ing, or the orchard may be renewed by setting a row of trees between 
and removing all of the old ones after the new commence fruiting. 
An “old idea” was to prune the trees to have a trunk six to nine 
feet high and keep the heads thinned out by a periodical pruning, 
The “new idea” in the West is to set the trees and let them branch 
from the ground up like acurrant bush, or with very short trunks, 
and never afterward do any pruning. Well,itis hardly necessary, 
for the lower branches, in reaching upward for the blessed sunlight, 
soon become separate trunks, with a tuft of branching on the end, 
and if they are ever loaded with fruit, the winds and weight have a 
good leverage, and the pruning is complete. Our new dress suited 
for this climate would be to start the head of the tree at from three 
to four feet above the ground, according to variety and location, and 
prune or train to keep a well balanced top, not too heavy for the 
trunk and roots, and reasonably open. The “old idea” generally fa- 
vored setting strong, thrifty young trees raised from seeds and after- 
wards grafting or budding them in the top, or where-the top was 
to be started. But we learn from ancient writers that some parties 
did dig up the young seedlings in the fall and graft them just above 
the crown, doing the work by the fire in the winter. Root grafting 
by the present method was not very generally practiced until about 
sixty years since. For the climate of this state it is undoubtedly 
the best method for raising trees, because few seedlings are hardy 
enough to make good trunks, and the varieties we can grow here 
must be extremely hardy. If it becomes necessary or desirable to 
top-graft trees it should be done only on the hardiest varieties that 
have first been propagated as root grafts. 
In the olden times large commercial nurseries such as we have at 
the present time were unknown, and novelities were indeed rare and 
the traveling agent had not beeninvented. In almostany neighbor- 
hood some enterprising man would keep a small nursery, and the 
+ ee 
price of a good tree was about twenty-five cents, and the man who 
wanted trees generally went to the nursery for them. Now we have 
single commercial nurseries large enough to supply the state, and 
agents to sell the trees who are smart enough to convince the ordi- 
nary planter that the nursery they work for has all there is in the 
world that is good for anything and has mastered the true secret 
of propagation, so that the trees they have to sell will stand all 
climates and bear no end of fruit. So plausible is their story that 
some have hesitated about buying, lest the trees should live so long 
and bear so heavy they could not find any use for the fruit. Won- 
derful things are some of these novelties. A few years since a man 
came to me at the state fair and told me that my time for carrying 
off the large premiums at the fairs was short for he had putin an 
order fora quantity of trees—peaches budded on thorn, pears on iron- 
wood and apples on French crab stock, etc. Well,it did not mate- 
rialize, and fruit grown on the old kind of trees still takes the prizes, 
It is certain that skilled nurserymen who make it their business to 
grow and supply trees to the planters, can raise better trees and 
furnish them cheaper and,as a rule, better than individuals can raise 
for themselves; and when they keep up with the times, and furnish 
only such as are best for their customers, they ought to be liberally 
